We had one of our best Christmas trees in July, and it required absolutely no effort on our part.

This very special tree started out with hundreds of others on a tree farm in Central Wisconsin. We met up with it one blustery December day in our Piggly Wiggly store’s parking lot. Once home, the tree was ensconced in the dining room and carefully decorated by my husband.

When the holidays were over, we recycled the tree. Down to the beach it went to ultimately be turned into driftwood by the wave action in Lake Michigan.

We would occasionally see our tree, now sans needles, when we were able to take long walks on the beach in spring. The tree would wash up and down the beach, but it also disappeared for weeks at a time. By the start of summer, the tree had vanished.

One July day we were coming back to our beach stairs after a hike, and there it was on our neighbor’s beach, our tree, planted upright in the sand and completely decorated with dead fish. You will just have to imagine this, as we were laughing so hard our last thought was of getting a camera.

We later found out that the fish tree was the brainstorm of our neighbor’s grandson. He hung the dead fish from the holes where their eyes used to be. (Gulls eat the eyes of the dead fish that float in) You might say our entire neighborhood is big on recycling.

Greetings and welcome...

The Suitcase Lady Blog is now in its thirteenth year. I am obviously a believer in these words from E. B. White. "We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry." Thank you for reading the writing that I delight in doing.